Experiences, reflections, lessons learned: Published Thoughts on Education and Tech

Interactive Lessons: Let Students Create & Lead

After recent technology showcases, finishing up an independent study focused on Student engagement, motivation and social presence, I wanted to learn more about what students want and what they need to do well. Taking the digital tools we had used, with me leading the lesson, I put it in their hands to create and lead. It was an exciting opportunity, as the year was winding down, to keep motivated and try new things, but to give choices for all. Here is the second part of a series of stories, with student reflections.

Interactive Video Lessons: EDpuzzle

Rachelle Dene Poth: I am a Spanish and French Teacher and I look for ways to include student voice, choice, and leadership when finding the right materials for every student. With the help of some students, we worked with EDpuzzle as part of a new learning adventure, I wanted to empower students to become more than learners in the classroom. I wanted them to lead the class and develop these critical skills and have choices.

Choosing EDpuzzle

EDpuzzle is a tool that I have been increasingly interested in using with my students, to add to our video experiences and find new ways to engage them more in and out of class. As the school year started to wind down, I found myself wanting to try some new methods of instruction with my students. We have used a variety of digital tools to complete assessments, have discussions, create projects, collaborate on class wikis and more. The benefits have been tremendous. Students have improved their Spanish language skills by creating a more authentic and meaningful representation of what they know and can do with the material by having a choice in tools. This personalization meets their interests and needs and helps to motivate them.

Motivation for trying new things in the classroom

One of my main goals is to work to find creative and innovative ways to introduce content in my classroom and above all, to make sure that students have choices and feel valued and supported in the classroom. Giving choices for how to show their learning, leads to a more beneficial and personalized experience for all students and even myself. If each student chooses something different, this promotes more meaningful and unique learning experiences, and builds vital technology skills in the process. Opportunities like this lead to many benefits.

So who benefits from these new, interactive and flipped experiences?

We all do. Teachers and students benefit because not only have we all reinforced our knowledge of the content material, (Spanish language and culture in our case), we are learning about new tools, and maybe even more importantly, about each other.

Giving choices is a risk. With so many options available, it is not possible to know everything about each tool and its benefits. So as teachers, we have to learn as much as we can, and then relinquish some control to our students. They need to have the chance to explore, create, and share. Give them the opportunity to do more than simply produce the same product as the other students, because they are not the same. Let them become the “creators” and the leaders in the classroom. Let them take on a more active role and see how this promotes engagement, curiosity and motivation within them.

Putting the plan into action

With these new reflective thoughts, I began a new venture into having students select from diverse tools, which are typically used by teachers for delivering content, and had them create and teach a lesson. I thought this could be a bit risky, but would also be beneficial for many reasons. It seemed like an interesting twist to try, especially at the end of the year, and I wanted to see if and how it was of benefit.

Why make the change to student created lessons

Accountability. In education, there is a lot of accountability. Both teachers and students are accountable for learning and classroom involvement, as well as many other responsibilities. In my classroom, I use a variety of learning activities and offer choices of tools to help the students to learn. I often tell the students that it is like having a room full of toys, find one and try it, if you like it, keep it. If you don’t then select something else, because the idea is for it to be something that is beneficial and meaningful to you. No matter what you do, use each as a learning opportunity and a chance to reflect and grow.

Videos for learning

One area I rely on for helping students is the use of videos. In the past, I would assign the videos to be viewed outside of class, flipping the learning environment, and hope the students watched the videos as instructed, but without any real way to know. Sometimes we would discuss the video or I would have them complete an in class activity, ways to hold students accountable for watching the video. But students could skip through the video, gathering only the highlights, and get by with just enough information to complete the activity, or without watching the video, could learn the information elsewhere. So the problem remained student accountability.

That is before tools like EDpuzzle which enable the creation of interactive video lessons with analytics to show who watched, analyzing their responses to questions and much more. Without having tools like EDpuzzle, assigning students to watch a video alone does not promote accountability and is not quite as engaging, nor is it interactive. Students are less likely to really focus on the material.

How else can videos be used?

We use a variety of videos to enhance our learning in the classroom and I have spent time this year, creating more interactive lessons, to hold the students accountable. I also started wondering how the students would like being the creators, more active and interactive, rather than passive in their learning, and using these traditionally considered “teacher” resources to produce an assessment or a project and let them lead in the classroom.

I am thrilled with how this new approach has gone. While I may think that it went well and was very helpful, what matters more to me is what do the students think? I make it clear that I do not want to waste their time and would not assign something that I did not truly believe was beneficial. This is my hope, but I rely on the honest feedback of students, to reflect and move forward.

So what do the students have to say?

Three of my 10th grade, Spanish III students reflect on their experience with EDpuzzle.

Adam: I had been struggling to find a good web source to meet my needs for entertainment as well as my education in the classroom and EDpuzzle is a great way to meet both of these needs. When I faced the challenge of preparing a lesson to teach to my Spanish 3 class, I honestly didn’t know where to start. I first tried some other resources that we had used but they really weren’t getting the message across like I wanted. Then Mrs. Poth recommended a new tool by the name of EDpuzzle to me and my reaction was

“Edpuzzle? Mrs. Poth this is a Spanish project, not a puzzle!”“Just try it out!” She said.So I went home that night, and after thinking it through, I again began my Spanish project. I started with another source and was still disappointed in my product. Finally I decided to give EDPuzzle a chance. By the time the loading bar hit 100 percent and that page loaded up I knew I found the perfect tool for not only this project but many more to come!

EDpuzzle was a fantastic way for me to use my sports video and transform it into something completely unique with a few easy changes. And for future projects, I will never have the issue of handing out papers with the questions. I can simply tell my “class” to pull out their mobile devices and answer the questions that I have integrated into my video. There are so many options for a user to enjoy and learn from the features that EDpuzzle has to offer! Thank you for providing the tool to not only teach my Spanish 3 class but to have them enjoy as well.

BEN: I used EDpuzzle for a class project. The first time I saw EDpuzzle was in class and I thought it had a pretty interesting concept. So, when we were assigned a project for the camping unit, I decided to try EDpuzzle.

I created a lesson for my classmates by adding comments and questions to a camping video I found online. I found that EDpuzzle was easy to use and that it was a new fun way to make a class project that could be used as an interactive lesson. I especially enjoyed the many features EDpuzzle offers such as the being able to crop the video, make an audio recording over the video, and being able to make different types of questions. I felt that EDpuzzle impacted me in that it gave me a new way to present a topic and a more fun way to create projects and relay information. EDpuzzle is a fun and different digital tool to use that can be a great tool for learning.

A student who participated in the lessons of Adam and Ben said: “ By having all of the different choices of tools to use for our project made it easier to find something that I was interested in and comfortable with. The activities included in their video lessons were educational and fun, and made learning more enjoyable for the students. It provides more than just watching a video and not really being held accountable for paying attention. You had to pay attention in order to answer the questions. I would recommend EDpuzzle to anyone looking for a new way to present information, in any setting.”

In the end

It is all about giving the students choices and allowing them the opportunity to try new things, lead the class and develop their content area skills, as well as many other critical 21st century skills. EDpuzzle and the other tools, provided an opportunity for students to take on a new role, to build their comfort level, and to learn new ways of integrating technology and having fun in the process. They were the teachers and we all were the learners.